My state government's representative lives on the same street as me. If he does something stupid, he knows I'll be knocking on his door and asking why.
I have no idea where my national representative lives or how to get him to hear my voice. (Sending email is a waste; it just gets read by a secretary and deleted.) Therefore the State government is more responsive to me and the other citizens, where the central government usually doesn't hear us, like when they passed the TARP bailouts even though close to 80% of americans opposed it.
I trust my fellow human beings. Which is why I am pro-gun rights. But I don't trust those who are filled with ambition or avarice (love of power or money). Namely the politicians and bankers.
Re:They have lost all trust, but they retain distr
on
In Nothing We Trust
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Is there really any choice? I support Ron Paul's plan to cut 950 billion dollars and FINALLY balance the budget, but it's pretty clear Mitt Romney will be selected at the party convention. (Romney is 1st; Paul is 2nd.) So my choice is between one banker-funded man named Obama and another banker-funded man named Romney..... both of whom are pro-bombing/pro-killing. I might as well just stay home on election day, since there is not real choice.
And don't say "Vote third party." Been there; done that with Harry Browne, and it does no good. Third parties have never won any seat higher than the Congress. The president's office is always dominated by the top 2 parties (Federalist v. Democrats, or Whigs v. Democrats, or Republicans v. Democrats).
Somebody asked me why I posted a fake birthday on my profile. I said I don't want my data publicly posted and available to Facebook, google, and other advertisers, so almost everything on my profile is fake or deliberately left blank (except my name/school). That person told me I shouldn't be lying to people. (sigh) They just don't understand how data is being collected and sold, not just by corporations but also the DHS.
Re:And so another empire has fallen
on
In Nothing We Trust
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Actually the reason the EU is Not working is because of too much centralization. If they had never created the central bank, their equivalent to our Fed, and kept separate currencies, the EU would be in fantastic shape. The EU downfall is the same as our downfall - the damn bankers borrowing too much credit with nothing to back it up, and then printing money likes nuts to keep the edifice from collapsing (thus destroying the savings of the people).
Oh and one final thought: The fundamental basis of our Constitution, to quote the man who wrote it, is that the powers of the Congress are FEW and defined, while the powers of the Member States are many. It was always intended to be a union of strong states with most of the power close to the people, rather than ~1500 miles distant..... and last time I checked the 10th amendment was not repealed, so that is still true today.
I don't recall any moment in history when Americans trusted institutions like the banks or the governments. Which is why they killed-off the central bank in the early 1800s (sadly it came back in 1913), and wrote constitutions to limit government power. Americans fundamentally don't trust giving power to strangers.
>>>Who the fuck cares if it makes money - it's a STATE UNIVERSITY not a CORPORATION. It doesn't have to "make money".
Just because something is part of the government does not mean it should be a sinkhole to swallow taxpayer dollars. Like Amtrak or the Post office, the state universities compete on an open market against other businesses for customer dollars. As we've learned from Darwin, competition weeds-out the bad and inefficient, leaving behind the well-adapted.
This is why I decided it was worth the extra $100 to get a disk drive. I had seen my friend's pain with the cassette save. Plus disk drives were just "cooler" to own with their shiny plastic, ker-clunk when you closed the door, and whoosh as they quickly-and-efficiently loaded games off the floppies.
What? What does Microsoft have to do with BASIC? Do you think Microsoft invented it or something? You are probably thinking Visual Basic. That has no relation to Commodore's implementation. You fall victim to Microsoft's marketing practice of calling their products generic names.
What a dumb fuck. When you use a Commodore, Apple, or most any other 8/16 bit computer of the 70s/80s, you see "BASIC" splashed across the screen. Sometimes with "copyright Microsoft" as well.
Atari is probably the only company that didn't use MS Basic, because they couldn't squeeze it into their limited ROM space.
Nobody was laughing though when Microsoft was prosecuted for violating the Sherman Antitrust Law of 1890. They may have squashed Netscape, but it cost them dearly.
>>>I can let go of cable tv at any time, but I'm too much of a sports freak
(1) Sports is just soap opera for men. Pretty pointless and not worth the $1000/yr cost of cable. (2) There are sports on the broadcast channels... they carry all the key games or races (like the Super Bowl and NASCAR). No need for cable. (3) You can also download many of the games off bittorrent.
$1 for a McDonalds hamburger times 2/meal times 3 meals == just $6 a day.
As for CATV I see it while traveling hotel-to-hotel and I usually turn it off. It's almost nothing but junk. It's not like the 90s when they filled CATV with actual programmming.... when TLC meant learning channel, History meant history, and sci-fi meant actual sci-fi (granted it was reruns but I had never seen UFO or Time Tunnel before). Now every channel has reality junk.
Envy for what other people have is also a factor. My brother had a "spending spree" and went-out to get a new phone. The salesman conned him to sign a contract for $110 cell service. After he told me that I said "That's nuts cause you can get the same thing for about 60. Or 3 gigs for $35." I recommended he cancel it before the 7 day trial period ends, but of course he didn't. He said he wanted to try mobile internet like his coworkers have.
Now he complains about the bill every month, so I say "I don't want to hear it."
Sorry but you don't have a nature-given right to take other people's money, property, or resources. For example you cannot force me to open my wallet, like a thief, and pay for your phone service. You only have a right to your body (because you own it) and what nature gives free of charge (like air, sunlight, etc).
Well said. Quoting the article, here's how much I spend on all this crap:
$0 each month for TV (antenna+hulu) $15 home Internet access $5 mobile phone service $0 digital subscriptions, such as satellite radio and streaming video
So I'm spending just $20 a month plus the occasional DVD rental (example: True Blood season 3). There's really no reason to be spending 150 to 200 dollars each month.
The Amiga did, at least during the 80s. Commodore 64 had greater than 50% market share and Amiga had half that. (After 1988 the IBM PCs became dominant.)
Indeed. I always slow-charge (trickle charge) all my batteries in order to avoid damage. I have NiCads that are 20 years old and still work! Of course it helps that my charger "refreshes" batteries as they become old and lose capacity:
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My state government's representative lives on the same street as me. If he does something stupid, he knows I'll be knocking on his door and asking why.
I have no idea where my national representative lives or how to get him to hear my voice. (Sending email is a waste; it just gets read by a secretary and deleted.) Therefore the State government is more responsive to me and the other citizens, where the central government usually doesn't hear us, like when they passed the TARP bailouts even though close to 80% of americans opposed it.
It can be if the facebook or google sold my data to a scam company.
I trust my fellow human beings.
Which is why I am pro-gun rights.
But I don't trust those who are filled with ambition or avarice (love of power or money). Namely the politicians and bankers.
Is there really any choice? I support Ron Paul's plan to cut 950 billion dollars and FINALLY balance the budget, but it's pretty clear Mitt Romney will be selected at the party convention. (Romney is 1st; Paul is 2nd.) So my choice is between one banker-funded man named Obama and another banker-funded man named Romney..... both of whom are pro-bombing/pro-killing. I might as well just stay home on election day, since there is not real choice.
And don't say "Vote third party." Been there; done that with Harry Browne, and it does no good. Third parties have never won any seat higher than the Congress. The president's office is always dominated by the top 2 parties (Federalist v. Democrats, or Whigs v. Democrats, or Republicans v. Democrats).
Somebody asked me why I posted a fake birthday on my profile. I said I don't want my data publicly posted and available to Facebook, google, and other advertisers, so almost everything on my profile is fake or deliberately left blank (except my name/school). That person told me I shouldn't be lying to people. (sigh) They just don't understand how data is being collected and sold, not just by corporations but also the DHS.
Actually the reason the EU is Not working is because of too much centralization. If they had never created the central bank, their equivalent to our Fed, and kept separate currencies, the EU would be in fantastic shape. The EU downfall is the same as our downfall - the damn bankers borrowing too much credit with nothing to back it up, and then printing money likes nuts to keep the edifice from collapsing (thus destroying the savings of the people).
Oh and one final thought: The fundamental basis of our Constitution, to quote the man who wrote it, is that the powers of the Congress are FEW and defined, while the powers of the Member States are many. It was always intended to be a union of strong states with most of the power close to the people, rather than ~1500 miles distant..... and last time I checked the 10th amendment was not repealed, so that is still true today.
I don't recall any moment in history when Americans trusted institutions like the banks or the governments. Which is why they killed-off the central bank in the early 1800s (sadly it came back in 1913), and wrote constitutions to limit government power. Americans fundamentally don't trust giving power to strangers.
Penn State had a separate computer science department until they merged it in the late 90s. Now it's part of the engineering department. CS and E.
>>>Who the fuck cares if it makes money - it's a STATE UNIVERSITY not a CORPORATION. It doesn't have to "make money".
Just because something is part of the government does not mean it should be a sinkhole to swallow taxpayer dollars. Like Amtrak or the Post office, the state universities compete on an open market against other businesses for customer dollars. As we've learned from Darwin, competition weeds-out the bad and inefficient, leaving behind the well-adapted.
This is why I decided it was worth the extra $100 to get a disk drive. I had seen my friend's pain with the cassette save. Plus disk drives were just "cooler" to own with their shiny plastic, ker-clunk when you closed the door, and whoosh as they quickly-and-efficiently loaded games off the floppies.
What? What does Microsoft have to do with BASIC? Do you think Microsoft invented it or something? You are probably thinking Visual Basic. That has no relation to Commodore's implementation. You fall victim to Microsoft's marketing practice of calling their products generic names.
What a dumb fuck. When you use a Commodore, Apple, or most any other 8/16 bit computer of the 70s/80s, you see "BASIC" splashed across the screen. Sometimes with "copyright Microsoft" as well.
Atari is probably the only company that didn't use MS Basic, because they couldn't squeeze it into their limited ROM space.
Nobody was laughing though when Microsoft was prosecuted for violating the Sherman Antitrust Law of 1890. They may have squashed Netscape, but it cost them dearly.
>>>I can let go of cable tv at any time, but I'm too much of a sports freak
(1) Sports is just soap opera for men. Pretty pointless and not worth the $1000/yr cost of cable. (2) There are sports on the broadcast channels... they carry all the key games or races (like the Super Bowl and NASCAR). No need for cable. (3) You can also download many of the games off bittorrent.
$1 for a McDonalds hamburger times 2/meal times 3 meals == just $6 a day.
As for CATV I see it while traveling hotel-to-hotel and I usually turn it off. It's almost nothing but junk. It's not like the 90s when they filled CATV with actual programmming.... when TLC meant learning channel, History meant history, and sci-fi meant actual sci-fi (granted it was reruns but I had never seen UFO or Time Tunnel before). Now every channel has reality junk.
VirginMobile over the Sprint network. $5==30minutes (I don't talk much) with rollover for unused minutes. It's always worked everywhere I've taken it.
Enough to stream hulu and youtube. 1000k. Also downloads movies/shows faster than I watch them (my HDD is full).
>>>It's not hard to guess that cpu6502 is someone's grandpa
I'm in my 30s Mr. anon. coward.
Envy for what other people have is also a factor. My brother had a "spending spree" and went-out to get a new phone. The salesman conned him to sign a contract for $110 cell service. After he told me that I said "That's nuts cause you can get the same thing for about 60. Or 3 gigs for $35." I recommended he cancel it before the 7 day trial period ends, but of course he didn't. He said he wanted to try mobile internet like his coworkers have.
Now he complains about the bill every month, so I say "I don't want to hear it."
Why don't you post under your real ID?
Sorry but you don't have a nature-given right to take other people's money, property, or resources. For example you cannot force me to open my wallet, like a thief, and pay for your phone service. You only have a right to your body (because you own it) and what nature gives free of charge (like air, sunlight, etc).
Well said. Quoting the article, here's how much I spend on all this crap:
$0 each month for TV (antenna+hulu)
$15 home Internet access
$5 mobile phone service
$0 digital subscriptions, such as satellite radio and streaming video
So I'm spending just $20 a month plus the occasional DVD rental (example: True Blood season 3). There's really no reason to be spending 150 to 200 dollars each month.
Work == boring.
College lectures == interesting. (Also audiobooks and infowars radio == interesting.)
The Amiga did, at least during the 80s. Commodore 64 had greater than 50% market share and Amiga had half that. (After 1988 the IBM PCs became dominant.)
So does Ubuntu Linux have 6.5% share yet?
Indeed. I always slow-charge (trickle charge) all my batteries in order to avoid damage. I have NiCads that are 20 years old and still work! Of course it helps that my charger "refreshes" batteries as they become old and lose capacity:
http://www.amazon.com/La-Crosse-Technology-Battery-Charger/dp/B000RSOV50